State of Education: SUNY IT teams up with ‘nfrastructure’
"nfrastructure," a company specializing in technology design, and the State University of NY Institute and Technology, or "SUNY IT," have joined forces on a statewide education program. Vince Gallagher reports.
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“So our partnership with the College on Nanoscale Science and Engineering and SUNY IT is designed to get our students and faculty engaged early on in real world problems, so when students go through the program, they can learn it and do it," said Dan Pickett, nfrastructure chairman and CEO.
Also involved in this partnership is the Infrastructure Center of Competency in Information Technology, or "NCCIT." The result is a paid internship for SUNY-IT students, where they can actually work side by side with industry partners like nfrastucture, focusing on real world technical skills
"It's designed to allow the faculty to have curriculum that is aligned with some of the leading edge technologies that's going to help these big companies solve their problems," said Pickett.
This program can also be successful for New York State in other ways. For one, it coincides with Governor Cuomo's approach in building nanotechnology. And two, in creating high tech jobs, it also helps to keep New York State competitive.
"It makes sense for infrastructure...we've always focused on retaining the absolute top technical talent, we're now able to participate in developing that technical talent, so it makes sense for our company, it makes good business sense, it makes really good sense for the state of New York," said Larry Delaney, NCCIT President.
But in addition to "developing" high tech jobs for New York, this is also about "retaining" them as well.
"The power of SUNY, the chancellor's vision, for SUNY is turning out this talent across New York State, and unfortunately it's leaving...programs like this are going to help retain that talent," said Delaney.
"The more we can get our whole system working together, the public sector, the private sector, leveraging our capitol, where we're investing in initiatives, that's going to make the state overall much more competitive,” said Pickett.
"And that has been fueled by New York State and to contribute to keeping that going for the state, it's good business for everybody,” said Delaney.